The Hungry Gypsy Boy
by Atarah Derekh
Summary: The young Romani couple was hopelessly naive. They were escaping persecution in France by seeking refuge in the colonies in North America, but all the captain saw was an opportunity for cheap labor. Especially since so many of his crew were down with plague. Even the couple's ravenously hungry little brat could be of some use as his personal cabin boy. Henri's story.


**The Hungry Gypsy Boy**

 **Disclaimer:** Dic owns Henri. I own the rest of it.

* * *

 _Normandy, France, October, 1771_

Dark skin. Hoop earrings. Clothing that had been brightly colored, but was now faded and torn. There was no mistaking the Gypsy family, just one more out of hundreds who were fleeing France for other countries where they hoped not to be persecuted. Some were even going to India, where they claimed to have originated. This particular family was hoping to book passage to the French-controlled territories in the New World. The captain sneered. The couple and their pudgy-faced little boy couldn't possibly have enough money to pay for their passage. Not even at the regular prices he offered. Which he certainly wasn't going to give these wretches. Everyone knew Gypsies lived to swindle others, so he had no qualms about swindling them. They wouldn't know the difference if he doubled his fares.

That they quickly relinquished all their meager coins and jewelry, plus a few hidden valuables, spoke of their desperation to escape France. The captain cast a skeptical eye over the treasures. Real gold and silver hoops, probably. No doubt stolen. He would accept it for now, but he informed the couple that they would have to work to pay off the remainder of their fare.

They were put up in the crowded cargo hold with all of the other undesirables, with just a few feet of space to lay down between barrels and other weary travelers. Despite the conditions, everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief when they felt the ship pull away from the dock. At last, they were on their way to freedom.

The Romani boy clung tight to his mother. Around him were strangers, some of whom looked like real thieves and cutthroats. The smell of rotting fish and sewage filled the hold, making the child nauseous. The wood groaned and the ship began to pitch in the waves. All this was a completely new experience to the boy.

"I'm scared, Mama!"

The woman gently shushed her son. "I know this is new, but we will soon be in the New World, where we will be free."

The boy continued to protest. "I'm hungry!"

His father chuckled. "When are you not hungry?" His mirth quickly gave way to a frown. His family _was_ always hungry. And there was little he had long been able to do about it. He rested a hand on the boy's head.

"Would you like me to tell you a story, Henri?"

The boy shook his head and laid it on his mother's lap. "No, Papa. I'm tired. I want to sleep until it's time to eat."

"I understand. Sleep well, son."

Henri's brown eyes fluttered closed, and he drifted off as his mother sang him an old Romani lullaby.

* * *

Henri was woken by a rough kick. He looked up groggily to see the bosun hovering over him. Nearby, his father berated the man for kicking his son.

"Shut your yap, Gypsy," the bosun snarled. "The captain has his first assignment for all of you; catching rats. And your brat isn't getting out of it."

Henri's mother shuddered. The bosun gestured for the family to follow him. The three of them begrudgingly rose to their feet and complied.

He led them to the galley, where the cook's helper was washing dishes. Rats could be seen fearlessly helping themselves to the scraps on the plates.

"Catch the rats and drop 'em in the ocean," the bosun ordered. "And don't use any of the captain's dishes to trap 'em!" With that, he left the family alone with the dish boy, who merely waved toward the rats.

It didn't take long for the three of them to devise a system for capturing the rodents. Henri held onto a bucket, which he slammed down over the rats as his parents swept them toward him. Soon, the bucket was too full to catch anymore rats. Henri's father found a wooden board to put over the mouth of the bucket, then took the bucket from Henri. Henri followed his parents up to the deck.

"Is this what we have to do to pay for our trip?" Henri complained. "I mean, it was fun at first, but then it got hard. One of those rats tried to bite me!"

As Henri's father emptied the bucket over the side, he gave a resigned sigh. "I'm afraid so, son. But don't worry. Soon we'll be across the ocean, and we won't have to worry about catching rats ever again."

"I hope not."

The remainder of the day was spent scrubbing various parts of the ship, collecting dead rats, and fielding jeers and hazing from the crew and some of the other passengers. It was all Henri could do to keep from losing his temper with him. Every time he was tempted to shout something at his persecutors, his mother would place a calming hand on his arm.

Finally, the long day started to wind down. But when supper came, it was the kind of fare a low paying passenger could expect on a ship like that; stale, cold gruel, and hard, tasteless biscuits. A few pieces of jerky were tossed to the passengers in the cargo hold, as if they were animals. And sure enough, an animalistic fight broke out over the coveted bits of dry meat.

Henri clutched his growling stomach. He was so hungry, yet this food looked positively awful. The water was worse. Henri was certain it was leftover mop water. But the cruelest part of all of it was that he could smell delicious food being prepared in the galley. It was all for the captain and his highest paying guests. Henri sighed and pushed his food away.

"Henri, you need to eat," his father encouraged.

"I don't feel like it. The food is awful!"

"I know, son, but it's all we have right now. We must make the best of it until our journey is over."

Henri groaned, but complied, picking up his bowl and reluctantly poking at the contents before forcing himself to take a small bite.

It was going to be a very long trip.

* * *

As the days passed, Henri found himself reluctantly growing accustomed to the difficult routine. His family rose before sunrise and began their chores, which included catching rats, cleaning, taking meals to the crew and important passengers, and enduring abuse from others on the ship. It was more than a six-year-old could bear, and Henri sometimes considered jumping into the ocean and swimming back to France. If only he knew how to swim.

One evening, when the seas were particularly rough, Henri stayed close to his mother. It had been a particularly difficult day for him, as one crew member had deliberately tripped him while he was bringing the captain his lunch. The captain had watched it happen, and still blamed Henri for being "clumsy." That had caused Henri to lose his cool, and the captain had picked the boy up by his collar, threatening to lock him in the hold. Fortunately, Henri's parents intervened and the captain relented. He let them go, but not without muttering several curses regarding the "filth of heathen Gypsies."

"Why do they treat us so badly, Mama?" Henri moaned. "What did we ever do to them?"

"Oh, sweetie, they've never trusted us," his mother replied. "Some people just don't trust anyone who's different from them."

"It's the only thing the _gadje_ are good at," Henri's father griped. "Not trusting those who are different, and treating them with cruelty."

"There are good _gadje_ out there," Henri's mother defended.

"Name one."

She fell silent and looked away.

Henri gave a small whimper as the boat pitched again, clutching his mother's dress. He was so tired, but the rolling ship was keeping him from falling asleep. He thought about what his father had said. Was it true? Was there really no such thing as a good _gadje_? Henri prayed that wasn't the case as he started to drift off despite the storm.

* * *

One day, some passengers started feeling feverish.

Sick passengers were quarantined. They were all lower class at first, but soon the fever spread to the upper class passengers and some of the crew. As members of the crew became too sick to work, the work load on the young Romani family increased. Henri could see that his parents weren't taking it well; they both looked so pale, and were starting to cough and sneeze themselves. He worked as hard as he could, very nearly exhausting himself to the point of collapse.

But it was his mother who collapsed first, while swabbing the deck in the sweltering summer heat.

Henri and his father were beside her in an instant. She had a raging temperature, and was pale to the point of death. Henri and his father called for help, but were brusquely instructed to take her below deck and place her with the other plague victims.

 _Plague?_ Henri thought. _What is a plague?_

Henri's father carried his mother down to the cargo hold and laid her on her bedding, such as it was. "Henri, run and find a rag, get it wet, and bring it to me," he instructed the boy.

Henri had never run so fast in his life. It wasn't hard to find a rag in the galley, and the sink happened to be full of water. The galley boy wasn't around, so Henri didn't have to worry about being accused of stealing. He returned to his parents and handed the rag over to his father.

As his father mopped his mother's brow, Henri watched her worriedly. "Is she going to be okay, Papa?"

His father's face was pale and grim, and he visibly choked back a cough before speaking. "I don't know, Henri."

"Are _you_ going to be okay?"

His father gave him a tired smile. "It takes more than a little fever to knock me down."

Henri tried to return the smile. He hoped his papa was right. He hoped his mama would be okay.

Two days later, the crew that was well enough to stand began dumping the bodies of those who had died of the plague in the ocean. Three days after that, Henri found himself desperately clutching at the pants of three crew members, screaming for them not to take his parents. The crew ignored him, dropping the two stiff, cold bodies into the water with the latest batch of victims. Henri watched helplessly as the burlap-wrapped bodies of his parents became waterlogged and sank beneath the waves. He stood on the deck for hours, tears rolling down his cheeks, until a cold wind and rain forced him below deck. The little boy curled up in the corner his parents had previously occupied and cried himself to sleep.

He didn't know why the plague had spared him, but the very next day, he wished it hadn't.

Henri was roughly hauled into the captain's quarters before dawn, where a clearly angry but eerily calm captain awaited him. The captain loomed over the boy, who was thrown to his knees at the captain's feet.

"You have found yourself in a very precarious position, Gypsy whelp," the captain sneered. "Against my better judgment, I offer you heathens a place on my ship, at ludicrously cheap prices, and how do you repay me? You bring the plague on board my ship! Your family's witchcraft has killed half my crew, as well as several of my deserving passengers!"

"W-we are not witches," Henri protested. He earned a kick in the ribs.

"Shut up, brat!" the captain shouted. "If you are not practicing witchcraft, how is it you are untouched by the plague?"

"I-I don't know," Henri answered miserably. Suddenly, he felt emboldened. He pushed himself up, looked the captain in the eye and declared, "If we were witches, then my parents would not have died either! Maybe _you_ killed them!"

The captain backhanded the boy, sending him to the floor again. He picked Henri up by the collar. "Look here, you little runt," he growled, "you are in no position to make accusations! Your parents owed me half their passage yet, and now there's no one left to pay off their debt but you. So despite your bad attitude, and your unfortunate heritage, I'm going to very generously give you a chance to work off your family debt as my personal cabin boy. You will do whatever I tell you whenever I tell you, without complaint or mistake. Do I make myself clear, Gypsy?"

Henri gulped and nodded. The captain dropped him.

"Good. Now, fetch my breakfast."

Henri scrambled to his feet to comply, dashing out of the captain's quarters toward the galley.

* * *

Days rolled into weeks, which rolled into months. Henri watched as the French ports in the West Indies came and went. Every time he thought the captain would let him go, he was reminded of his parents' debt. Henri's life became a hellish nightmare, filled with hard labor, physical and verbal abuse, and constant hunger. The captain fed him just enough to keep him from starving, but not a scrap more. Henri was constantly set up to fail, so that the captain might have an excuse to take his frequent anger out on the boy. Henri found himself spending every other night locked in the hold. But the worst part of all was when the captain did something Henri was sure had been illegal in France for hundreds of years: He started calling Henri his slave.

Henri soon lost track of the number of times he went back and forth between France and the West Indies, sometimes stopping in the British colonies in America or the French territories in Canada (what little of Canada France still held). He was never allowed to disembark, and even raising the suggestion was enough to get him a whipping and locked in the hold. The boy began to give up hope of ever seeing freedom. He was doomed to a life of misery. A life of slavery on the high seas. Just because he was a Gypsy.

* * *

One day, the ship was in port in a city called Philadelphia. Henri hadn't seen that particular city before, and was sure he wouldn't get the chance, as the captain had taken to finding any excuse to lock Henri up before they made port. Henri resigned himself to spending the next 24 hours or so in the hold and curled up, determined to try and sleep at least some of it away. He scarcely noticed as crew and merchants came and went, taking cargo out of the hold, laughing and telling crude stories as they worked. Henri had been exposed to enough English at that point that he could understand a bit of what was being said, but chose to ignore it. So he paid no attention when two more English speaking voices, a deep one and a higher, younger one, filled the hold.

"I think that's the crate over there, Moses."

"Hang on, James, let me check. I've had orders shipped incorrectly before."

"Wait...what's that over there?"

"Where? What do you mean?"

"There! There's someone behind bars! It's a little kid!"

Henri noticed a large shadow fall over him. He sat up and spun around to see two faces staring at him in shock. One belonged to a large African man. The other to a white teenager with blond hair and blue eyes. Henri's eyes widened in fear.

"It's okay," the African man said, holding up a hand. "We're not here to hurt you."

Henri couldn't understand much of what the man said, but he managed to pick out "not" and "hurt." He relaxed a bit.

"I'm Moses," the man continued, pointing to himself and then his companion. "And this is James." He then gestured to Henri. "What's your name?"

Henri didn't need to speak a word of their language to understand this exchange. He gestured to himself and said, "Henri."

"Moses, we've gotta get him out," James pleaded.

Moses nodded, a determined look on his face. He walked over to the crate he'd been inspecting earlier and pulled a metal bar out of it. He placed the bar between two bars of the cell and pulled with all his might, bending a space wide enough for Henri to crawl through.

"It's okay to come out now," James said, reaching a hand out to Henri.

The boy slowly crawled out, unsure of these two strangers. They were clearly _gadje._ Why were they being nice to him?

"We still have to get him off the ship," Moses said. "But if he was locked up, odds are the captain won't appreciate us just walking off with him."

James looked around, spying some straw in a corner. "We can put him in the crate with the printing press parts and cover him with straw."

"It'll never work. There's not enough room for both of them."

"Then we'll...hide the parts under the straw and put Henri in the crate instead." James winced as he made the decision.

Moses smiled. "That's a very clever idea, James."

With that, the two of them began removing parts from the crate, covering them with straw. Moses then plucked Henri up and placed him in the crate. James gestured for him to remain quiet as they closed the lid on him.

Henri bit his lip in fear. He had no idea what these strangers had in store for him. But he remained silent. He felt them lift the box and proceed upstairs. Several minutes more of shuffling, and Henri thought for sure he felt his rescuers set foot on dry land. He dare not make a sound until they had him well away from that awful ship. He had to resist the urge to grunt or cry as the box was placed on some kind of surface. It was apparently a wagon, as Henri heard the clatter of wheels and horses' hooves as he began to move again.

It wasn't too much longer before the lid opened, and James invited Henri to sit up.

"You're safe now," James reassured the boy.

Henri took several moments to take in his surroundings and breathe the fresh air. Tears came to his eyes as he realized that not only was he finally free, but that his rescuers proved his father wrong. There _were_ good _gadje_ in the world. He turned to James and threw his arms around the teen.

" _Merci beaucoup_ ," he cried. "Thank...you!"

"Whoa, okay, then," James said uncertainly. But he returned the hug.

Moses watched the exchange from his position as the driver. He smiled fondly. Another child rescued from slavery. He was sure the boss would be proud if he were there.

"Moses, can we write Dr. Franklin and ask him if Henri can stay with us?" James asked.

"I had already planned on it," Moses replied. "For now, though, I think we should ask Mrs. Bache if she'd allow us use of her bathtub and a good meal for this boy. I'm willing to bet that after that experience, he could eat a horse."

James chuckled. "Him? No way. A kid that size could never put away a meal like that." He playfully ruffled the boy's hair.

Henri heard his stomach growl. He looked at his rescuers expectantly. " _Aliments?_ " he asked. "Food?"

"Then again..."

Moses laughed. They were bound to have their hands full with this one.


End file.
